What is Righteousness?
Psalms 119:172 My tongue shall speak of thy word for all thy commandments are righteousness
Note: Righteousness is right doing and God’s law is Righteousness. If we experience righteousness [right doing] by faith [depending on the power of God], then there is an experience of obedience to God’s law.
What will be our righteousness?
Deuteronomy 6:25 And it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God as he hath commanded us
Note: Observing all the commandments of the Lord
Why did David delight to do God’s will?
Psalms 40:8-9 I delight to do thy will O my God yea thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation
Note: God’s law is in his heart
If the law is in his heart, what will he speak?
Psalms 40:8-9 I delight to do thy will O my God yea thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation
Note: Righteousness
What will produce peace and righteousness?
Isaiah 48:18 O that thou had hearkened unto my commandments then had thy peace been as a river and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea
Note: Hearkening to the commandments of God
Who knows righteousness?
Isaiah 51:7 Hearken to me ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law
Note: The people in whose heart the law of God is (See also Isaiah 51; Isaiah 42:21). A heart that is filled with the law of God brings forth the fruit of righteousness. A character that is filled with the law of God manifests itself in righteousness. This then confirms to us the simple truth that God’s law is righteousness.
Who knows not God?
1 John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love
Note: They that loveth not!
What is love?
Romans 13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbor therefore love is the fulfilling of the law
Note: God is love and Love fulfills the law. Therefore God fulfills the law! Thus, a heart filled with the Love of God is a heart filled with the law of God, which is a heart filled with the very character of God. Remember, I was created for His glory/character and that glory is His self sacrificing love which is fulfilled by His law [See: The Purpose of God in the creation of Man]
How many are righteous?
Romans 3:10-12 As it is written there is none righteous no not one, there is none that understandeth there is that seeketh after God. They are al gone out of the way they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good no not one
Note: Righteousness is right doing or doing good. No righteous person does evil. A righteous man does good.
What is unrighteousness?
1 John 5:17 All unrighteousness is sin
What is sin?
1 John 3:4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresses also the law for sin is the transgression of the law
Note: Sin is breaking God’s law. Righteousness is keeping God’s law. Righteousness is obedience to the law.
Who is righteous?
1 John 3:7 He that doeth righteousness is righteous
1 Corinthians 15:34 Awake to righteousness and sin not
Note: Righteousness is right doing. This we have already established. What is Righteousness by Faith? Righteousness by Faith means that God enables us to obey Him.
Who doth not commit sin?
1 John 3:9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
Note: Those who are born of God cannot continue in unrighteousness (See also 1 John 2:29). See what it means to be born of God - note: This link will take you away from our site: Believing in the Son of God.
Can we be righteous and obey the law in our own strength?
We cannot be righteous and obey the law in our own strength:
Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Note: In my flesh [sinful nature], dwelleth no good thing. Therefore I will not be justified [put right with God] by the deeds [works] of the law that I do in my [sinful] flesh. I need to be born again!
Righteousness by Faith is Right doing or obedience through the power that God makes available to us by His grace:
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Ephesians 2:8-10 8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Colossians 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory
Philippians 2:12,13 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Hebrews 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I [God] will put my [His] laws into their [our] mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Note: We are his workmanship. He is the potter and we are the clay (Isaiah 64:8). We don’t take the work of righteousness [right doing] into our hands to do [by our strength]. But it’s Christ [the potter] who works in us to manifest His perfect character in us. We are the clay and we yield to the touch [the workmanship] of the Potter and thus produce good works [righteousness]!
See also: